Harvest Bible Chapel, an influential Chicago-area megachurch, will drop a defamation lawsuit against two bloggers, their wives and a freelance reporter after a court ruled that documents subpoenaed in the case could be made public.

The executive committee of elders at Harvest posted a statement on the church's website after the court's decision on Monday (Jan. 7), saying they do not want to "knowingly subject innocent people" to the subpoena process. The church will "receive these outcomes as God's direction," according to the announcement.

"With this decision, we can again focus our energies on continued growth in personal and organizational faults we have owned, enduring what is false, and striving to mitigate the damage such attacks bring to our church family and friends," it said.

Harvest — a church of 12,000 attendees across seven locations in and around Chicago — filed the suit in October against Ryan Mahoney, a former teacher at the church-affiliated Harvest Christian Academy, and Scott Bryant, a former church member. The two have written critically about Harvest founding pastor James MacDonald on their blog, The Elephant's Debt, a play on the name of MacDonald's controversial theology conference, The Elephant Room.

The suit also named Julie Roys, who at the time was working on an investigative article about the church for World Magazine. The article, published last month in the evangelical magazine as "Hard Times at Harvest," alleged financial mismanagement and a culture of intimidation and little accountability for leadership at the church.

MacDonald claimed the defendants had "harmed our ministry through their careless campaign to discredit," driving more than 2,000 people to leave the church, according to a letter posted on the Harvest website.

Such lawsuits brought by churches against their critics are rare, according to Frank Sommerville, a Texas lawyer who assists churches in preventing litigation but never has worked with Harvest.

That's "primarily because of just what's happened here — you bring more attention to the critics, you bring more attention to the reporter's story than if you had just responded with, 'We deny everything,' and just going on," he said. "The litigation process escalates the dispute to a whole new level."

By not providing the documents necessary to prove the bloggers' and reporter's stories false, the church is "basically conceding" that they're accurate, Sommerville said.

Related Articles

The Elephant's Debt posted an update after the court's ruling on Monday, along with a GIF of a baby elephant gleefully swinging its trunk.

Roys responded with a tweet linking to Harvest's announcement, calling the lawsuit "shameful" and adding, "Strange. I thought they had nothing to hide."

In a written statement shared with Religion News Service, Roys pointed out she had not yet published anything about the church at the time it filed its lawsuit against her. She simply had contacted Harvest for a response to the allegations made by former elders and staff.

"It seems Harvest's decision to drop the suit was motivated by a desire to suppress the truth and maintain its secrets," she said.

Roys called on MacDonald and Harvest to apologize and reimburse defendants for their legal fees — and on every church leader who was part of "this unbiblical lawsuit" to resign.

Bryant and Mahoney also posted an open letter Tuesday to MacDonald and Harvest on their website, asking them to pay for legal fees and other bills pertaining to this suit. The bloggers called on MacDonald and Harvest to publicly apologize for including the two men's wives, Sarah Bryant and Melinda Mahoney, in the suit, and they said the church should apologize for lying to Harvest members.

"As you, James, have so often taught in the past, resolution and reconciliation means far more than merely offering words," they wrote. "It requires concrete acts of repentance that demonstrate the fruit of the spirit and the sincerity of the words beings offered."

Your Turn

Please be considerate and respectful of your fellow posters. If Jesus and your mother would not approve of your writing, you should revise your comment before submitting.

Use standard writing style and punctuation. Complete sentences and proper grammar will help others understand you.

Do not use profanity, obscenities, abusive language or otherwise objectionable content (as determined by Charisma Media moderators, in their sole discretion). Comments should not harass, abuse or threaten another's personal safety or property, make false statements, defame or impersonate someone else.

Do not question others' faith just because you disagree with them. It adds nothing to the discussion and only causes strife.

Do not question why someone comes to this website just because they disagree with you or the content of the article.

Do not post personal information including phone numbers, email or mailing addresses, or credit card information belonging to you or others.

Do not include copyrighted content or other intellectual property that you do not own or have the explicit rights or lisenses to distribute.

Do not post, directly or through links, viruses, misleading, malicious or off-topic content.

Please consider the following statements pertaining to comments posted by you and other visitors to our website:

Appearance of comments, advertisements or hyperlinks made by other commenters on this site do not necessarily indicate or constitute acceptance of or endorsement of the products, companies, corporations, ministries, organizations or agencies in whole or in part by staff members and/or the members of the editorial board of Charisma Media.

Comments are not pre-screened before they post. Charisma Media reserves the right to modify or remove any comment that does not comply with the above guidelines and to deny access of your Disqus account to make additional comments to the website without any notice. If you have been denied access to comment due to a violation of these terms please do not create multiple accounts in an attempt to circumvent the system. The correct course of action is to request a review of your account status by contacting webmaster@charismamedia.com.

Charisma Media is not responsible or liable in any way for comments posted by its users.

If you believe a comment is in violation of the above guidelines, U.S. law or International treaties, or is legitimate "trolling" please flag the post or contact webmaster@charismamedia.com. Include a link to the comment, along with a statement explaining what you believe the violation is and any evidence backing your claim. Charisma Media moderators will consider your request and decide on the most appropriate action.